When an individual is arrested, handcuffs are used to secure the individual's wrists close together so that he/she cannot move their wrists more than a few centimeters/inches apart making many tasks difficult or impossible. This is usually done to prevent suspected criminals from escaping police custody and harming themselves or others. Once handcuffed, the suspect is placed in the back seat of a squad car and transported to jail.
Although the suspect has been handcuffed, transporting the suspect to jail is dangerous can have very tragic consequences. Even though handcuffed, unruly prisoners have a considerable ability to move around. They can position themselves so as to slam their feet against doors and windows, often causing damage to the car's interior. Particularly physical prisoners have been known to break out windows, for example. When prisoners exhibit such extreme behavior, the end results can be dangerous. In addition to damaging the squad car, they also pose a danger to police officers being injured or killed, prisoners escaping, endangering the public, bad press, and unneeded job stress for the police officer.
To reduce the above mentioned problems and dangers, shackles or chains have been used to restrain the legs and feet of a prisoner once a prisoner has been subdued, but such leg manacles cannot be readily placed on the prisoner and are not practical for use by an arresting officer. Moreover, unless heavily weighted, they would not prevent the prisoner from lashing out with his or her feet.
Consequently, what is needed is a restraining device which is light weight, can be easily carried on belts of the police officers and which alleviates the problems and dangers inherent in transporting suspects as described previously.